Pregnant Dolpins

Erin Brines

How pregnancy affects female dolpins

The final weeks of delivery are hard on any female dolphin Shawn Noren Marine Science, University of California Santa Cruz examined the way newborn dolphins swim after birth. Noren discovered the impact of pregnancy on animals affects their shape and mobility. She publishes her finding that pregnant dolphins are disadvantaged by their burden and need to find a new style of swimming

Norens discoveries
"The pregnant females had huge protrusions where the fetus was sitting towards the back end of the body," says Noren, who donned scuba gear and spent a large portion of the final two weeks of the dolphins' pregnancies filming them underwater. Noren also filmed the dolphin mothers immediately after their calves were born untill they turned two comparing her discoveries before and after delivery she realized that the pregnant dolphins were slower when swimming The pregnant dolphins top speed was 3.54 m/sec,the dolphins were able to swim a lot faster after delivery "Two to three meters per second is a comfortable speed for most bottlenose dolphins," says Noren, "but these pregnant animals did not feel comfortable going beyond that."

Surface area
Noren also measured the girth of the dolphins and calculted the surface area and realized that the pregnancy had a huge 51% impact on the frontal surface area of the dolphins And when she measured the drag experienced by the animals as they glided through the water, she discovered that it doubled when the mothers were close to delivery.

The pregnant dolphins also had another problem

The increased fat stores increased their buoyancy 'The buoyancy issue is going to be problematic when you are going down on a dive to capture prey and they are going to need extra energy to overcome that buoyant force', says Noren Manually digitizing the position of the animals' tail fins as they beat up and down, Noren discovered that the pregnant females were unable to move their tail fins as far as they could after birth.their tail beat amplitude had reduced by 13% and they compensated for the reduced propulsion by beating their tail fins faster.

The pregnant dolphins had changed gait.

Having found how pregnancy affects soon-to-be dolphin mothers, Noren laid out the additional risks females face Pregnant female dolphins are unable to outrun predators these dolphins being heavier because their pregnant are more vulnerable to attack and they may not be able to keep up with the pod if pursued by fishing vessels

Dangers
Explaining that tuna are still fished using large nets in the eastern tropical Pacific, Noren says, "Here is a fast speed event, so it is possible the near-term pregnant females are being left behind in the chase. They are reliant on a large pod for protection and cooperative feeding and once the animal is separated it would be hard for it to find the pod again."

Sources
http://www.macroevolution.net/pregnant-dolphins.html